Cold and Dark
by FearandLoathingXIX
Summary: It should have taken Pitch Black hundreds of years to rise up again, but should doesn't count for much with Pitch. Barely a year after his defeat, strange things are happening to Jack Frost.
1. Jack

I really wanted to call this _Black Ice _but that is unfortunately shared with a popular shipping name and I wouldn't want to give people the wrong idea. My introduction as-shared on my tumblr (fear3loathing).

* * *

Rise of the Guardians

Cold and Dark

_Prologue_

* * *

Guardian or no, nothing beat a good snow day as far as Jack Frost was concerned.

Not that he begrudged being a Guardian. Sure, there were times at which the newest addition could be found snowing people into their homes and bringing down power lines instead of harking the call of the Aurora Borealis, but that was to be expected. His purpose was bringing joy to children of all kinds and creed, not attending meetings about flickering lights on a globe.

However, to his relief Jack had quickly realised that with Pitch Black out of the picture the demands of being a Guardian were significantly less than he'd imagined. While Tooth and Sandy had to work around the clock, racing dawn at the speed of light, and North and Bunny prepared an entire year for one single day, Jack's duties largely consisted of touring the globe starting snowball fights and freak blizzards that kept people home with their families over thanksgiving. So aside from the odd informal meeting, there wasn't actually a great deal to worry about. Jack had never been cut out for the serious gig anyway. Everything was business as usual.

Back in Burgess he was inciting one of his world-famous snow days when something went amiss. Since becoming visible to almost every kid in town he had to be more careful, and hovered high above the eyeline where his silhouette against the sun would be written off as a trick of the light. Snow warfare ended when children and adults alike scattered, screams of fright replacing joy as a car charged over the pavement like a bullet flying out of a gun.

A clever gust of wind swept everyone clear of the crash as the vehicle ran straight off the road and careered into a ditch with horns blaring. Jack was stunned; nothing slipped like that unless he _made _it slip, and he'd never send something dangerous off the road.

"_What was that?" "Where did it come from?" "I thought I was a gonner," _people were chattering around the car as the driver emerged dazed from the car. He seemed all right, if a little shaken, but was no more certain of what happened than anyone else had been. Emergency services were on the scene in minutes.

"It was as if the road just went out from under me," he mumbled quietly to a police officer, wrapped in a shock blanket with a cup of cocoa in his shaking hands.

"Probably black ice you had there," the officer replied solemnly. "It happens sometimes. Sheer as glass, and you don't even see it until you're right on top of it."

"That's baloney," Jack barked over their unhearing shoulders. "I never put down ice like that in my-" A flicker crossed the corner of his eye. The sun was sinking down over the hill like lava melting into the sea, and shadows had grown long over sparkling snowdrifts. The shadows of lamposts striped the street almost like prison bars.

_Black ice_, he thought to himself, and turned around cagily. _But it couldn't be_.

"Yeah, it was probably black ice, like you said officer," the driver reaffirmed. "Never can trust Jack Frost, eh?"

"Hey-!" Jack snapped, but he couldn't spare time to get worked up about slander right now. He was twitching and circling like a spooked dog, sure that every patch of darkness was going to leap the second his eyes were turned. But something _had _moved. In an alleyway, where the golden afternoon collected like water clinging to a gutter. Only the Eastern side of the buildings were still lit above the first story. Everything else was in shadow.

Jack bounced on pockets of air, skating just centimetres off the ground towards the channel cut through the buildings. Holding his staff low, he stepped closer and wondered if the dread in his stomach was his own invention or a signal of something else. North's belly was rarely wrong, but Jack didn't trust his own. He moved like a stalking animal, chasing shadows, waiting for something that wouldn't come.

_'Now... there's a little Fun.' _

It didn't sound like a normal voice. It was an echo from everywhere and nowhere. It tickled the back of Jack's neck and stung the soles of his feet. It was wrong and soothing at the same time. It shouldn't, couldn't be here – not now, not so soon.

"Pitch?" it was too easy to say the name, and that gave Jack a bolt of worry. Like it helped to summon him. "Is it really-?"

_'Really what?'_ asked the sinuous echo, rattling like a dime in a tin can. _'Been so long?' _It hadn't been long, not long enough, not nearlylong enough for him to be back.

Then Jack saw him, an elevated cutout against the russet brickwork in the sun. Not him as he _was_, but a shadow, the outline. Jack moved his gaze to the top of the opposing building, but saw nothing except a flicker of black sinking downwards. It slid like paint, or blood, down the wall; not quite solid but too thick for a liquid.

The puddle of darkness leapt just as instinct forced Jack's hands up in front of him. His staff clashed against the lash of a scythe as it swung out of the shadows and almost gouged the wood in two.

Blows fell in quick succession, one, two, then a third cracking against sheaths of ice Jack put up. Each was smashed, absorbing shock that would've sent him flying across the street otherwise. Snowfall and broken ice rained like glass on the floor around them, until a swoop finally came wide enough to dodge and Jack slipped around it on a gust of wind. He pushed one foot back and pointed the end of his staff outwards, sending a blast of hoarfrost across Pitch.

Except it went straight through him and iced the wall two metres away.

"What?" Jack gaped. That wasn't meant to happen. The ice had acted as if Pitch weren't even there.

_'That was good fun, Frost,' _the voice spoke, but that was when it became clear how wrong everything was. Pitch's mouth didn't move, in fact, he barely had a face. An outline held his shape, but his features plunged inwards – as if his form were a black hole that sucked in mass rather than possessing it. _'Don't let the bed bugs bite.'_

Then he was gone.


	2. North and Sandman

Actual chapter 1 of my RoTG fanfiction. Mostly influenced by early Pitch Black concepts and a desire to delve more deeply into his character. I enjoy him in the movie but there is a lot more that could be said about him. Gaps for fan speculation are what fanfic is all about though!

* * *

Rise of The Guardians

Cold and Dark

_Chapter 1_

* * *

"It was him! I saw him!" Jack hollered until it felt like his voice could go out. The Yetis were kicking up a racket, like they were out to smash toys and not make them. Maybe they sensed something in the air, hanging around Jack. Shadows that hadn't quite been shaken off.

"Pitch? It cannot be," North declined surely. "He was taken by night mares."

"But that doesn't explain why I saw him," Jack insisted. When North got spooked everyone flew to the pole on urgent orders, yet he'd been eye-to-eye with Pitch Black and the Slavic legend considered it a trifle.

"You saw Pitch?" North seemed to challenge, staring down at him from above the immense beard. "You. See. _Him?"_

"Well... more or less," Jack answered. "He was there- I mean, it was him, I know it was. He attacked me."

"And so you sent him back where he come from," North surmised, turning away to bark at one of the yetis in its own gibberish language. "There is no problem."

"No, I mean, yes he disappeared, but I couldn't do anything to him," Jack fumbled. "It _was _Pitch, but it kinda... wasn't, as well."

"It was? It wasn't? You make no sense, Jack," North soothed. "You work too hard. Here, take a seat and drink some eggnogs."

"I'm not overworked," he protested. He didn't work in the first place – his life was ultimately stress-free. "I know it _was_ Pitch... or some part of him." There were darker things about this, things Jack didn't want to consider; like what happened to Guardians who were forgotten. Pitch wasn't a Guardian, but then why did he disappear when children stopped believing in him like they did? Why was his destiny the same as theirs, when he was the very opposite of what they were?

"Pitch is no problem," North assured Jack heartily. "Will take him a long time to get back to power."

"That's what I thought," Jack replied, "but then how do you explain what happened?"

"Even we Guardians do not know everything about Pitch and his powers," North consoled. "You must stay alert, and if it happen again we will find answers."

"Okay." It wasn't really the answer he wanted, but he wasn't sure what the answer he wanted _was_.

A full explanation and safeguard to guarantee it wouldn't happen again would be nice, but even then Jack wasn't sure the rotting feeling in his gut would go away. The sight of that thing, a Pitch without being Pitch, was still burned in the back of his eyes. It hid in shadows, it loomed He didn't like it.

And it _would_ come back. That was the only thing he had no doubt of.

The next time it happened in Germany.

Jack was in the north, dressing towns in picturesque shades of white, when something moved on one of the roofs and a torrent of snow slipped from a building to pummel over a passer-by. They were unharmed, but then more snowdrifts started knocking down from their perches, taking out pedestrians and setting off car alarms.

He could sense the interference, like a pinch of salt in water. Something was wrong about his magic, like it was being contaminated. On the edge of the village stood a forest, and it was there he noticed the shadows darken. They shifted unnaturally, drawing together as if the patchy shade of the trees was being convalesced into a single point. When it took shape Jack was flying at it as fast as the wind could carry him.

The blot ran from him, speeding across virgin ground and darting further into the forest. He pursued, zipping between trees, but they slowed him down where the shadow passed straight through. By the time he caught up they could've covered a hundred miles or so, high up the mountain slopes where snow sat several metres deep. He landed on the crust, making only the lightest indentation on top of the drift, and squared off against the shadow where it stood – if a shadow _could _stand.

_'Run rabbit run,' _the voice – _his_ voice – said, but the figure didn't move. It was like a statue carved out of the darkest stone imaginable, so black that light poured into it and none reflected. It had no depth, no detail, just endless black. But it _was _his shape. The tall, elongated limbs, the poker straight posture. _'But your Guardians aren't here now, are they? What's the matter, didn't they believe you?'_

"They believed me just fine," Jack retorted, but in truth North was the only one he'd shared it with. "I don't need help to deal with _you_." He drew his feet out and braced himself to jump in any direction. "You're weak," he accused. The resulting laugh sent birds flying from the trees around them.

_'Weak, am I?' _It was a challenge. The shadow moved an arm, which stretched and turned into a scythe, then swung out at Jack. He dropped into the snow, right under the drift, cutting through the white until he was underneath where Pitch stood. He blasted ice in all directions, raising up on a pillar of jagged peaks and icicles. He trapped a part of the shadow as it lurched out of the way, but what was caught merely pulled from the body like bubblegum, stretching and then separating. Part of something black and horrible was left trapped in the ice, and where they'd mixed the edges were sharper, the spikes more vicious.

Jack's defence became an attack against himself when he blasted another frigid wind against Pitch. He pushed out a wall of ice, but where Pitch's body ought to have been pierced, black ice turned and shot daggers at him instead. Pitch was forcing his own medium against him, until he was dodging icicles as a swipe of the scythe shattered the structure and sent jagged points flying. Jack knew instinctively that this ice _would _hurt him.

"Okay, you want a fight?!" Jack bellowed, pushing the hail back with a blast of air. "Fine!" He spiralled upwards and drew the wind after him, whipping up a tornado of snow from the ground until he moved in his own private blizzard. He was stronger now than he'd ever been, and it was showing.

Then he glanced down and saw black. Like ink spinning down a drain, a wisp of darkness fed into his tornado and raised itself up in the frothing fury. He leapt from the twister with the knowledge that if it'd reached him he would be trapped, but the wind kept spinning, the black climbing higher and higher.

A dark, ominous laugh echoed around the forest clearing, as darkness took over the whirlwind like it was always meant to be something terrible. At the head of the swirl pits of light looked almost like a skull, floating where there might have been a face. This time, Jack was afraid.

_'That's right,' _it cooed. _'Be afraid. You know so little, Frost.'_ And then with a final gust everything vanished. As if Pitch had simply blown away. The only remainder was a marbled black spot in the ground, as if volcanic rock had been melted deep into it.

With a gasp that felt like part of him had been ripped away, Jack fell to his knees and blew a puff of ice crystals into the air, grasping at his chest and wondering how he could feel so out of breath. Fighting wasn't meant to tire him like this – it was draining, as it was for all of them to use magic heavily, but this was _exhaustion_. Fatigue, like he was still human and had been on a marathon.

"Something's wrong," he panted, looking at the spot of darkness and wondering what it meant. "Something's really wrong."

"And it _was _here, he was here, but he was some kind of insane whirlwind demon monster with a _skull _and he turned my ice against me and he laughed and said there was so much I didn't know, and it was _here_, right here!" Jack ranted, pointing again and again at the spot Pitch had left the world in, where now only a pure snowfall settled. He'd scraped back the dust to show Sandy the dark glass that'd been left, but it had vanished overnight, leaving nothing but dull earth and frost from his own fingertips.

Sandy looked at the ground, bent over and put his ear to it, tapped it, and then picked himself up and formed a big question mark over his head.

"I know it doesn't make sense, but something's going on," Jack insisted. "You've been around almost as long as him, right Sandy?"

A furious shake of his head sent particles of golden sand fluttering off into the air around Sandman's ears.

"What? But I thought-"

An image of Pitch appeared up top, and alongside a shining replica of the moon. They swirled around one another, and only after a few revolutions did a wide-eyed baby Sandman appear by their sides.

"You mean it was just them at the start?" Sandman nodded, then turned back down and felt at the ground. It was nothing. He straightened and gave a shrug. Something occurred to him, and the sand reformed to the shapes of Pitch and Jack, then another flourish and a question mark again.

"I don't know why he's following me," Jack professed. "Maybe he thinks-" he cut himself off. He hadn't told the other Guardians about how Pitch had approached him offering a deal. It hadn't seemed important, but now he wondered. "I don't know," he conceded glumly, and Sandy seemed pensive. A question mark popped up once more, followed by another, then another, then a whole little hoard of them bouncing up and down.

"I don't know what any of it means," Jack murmured. "That's why I thought... maybe someone else could, well, never mind." He'd wasted Sandman's time with this. There was nothing he could do, just like North. They hadn't seen Pitch, they only had Jack's word that he was even here.

"You better get back to work, right?" Jack offered, and Sandy gave an acquiescing shrug. He rose up on a golden cloud and took off across the sky, leaving Jack behind with his doubts.


	3. Toothiana

Cold and Dark

_Chapter 2_

* * *

Jack went home first, feeling safer where he knew every house and shadow. But then he got to thinking he was a danger. Pitch had caused a car accident just by turning the balance on his own powers; he could probably do it again. And as far as he knew Pitch only followed Jack, so could only interfere with Jack's magic to cause harm. That made Jack himself the threat.

It was nearly spring, almost a year since Pitch had been put down, and Jack was watching every shadow like it was going to turn on him. Maybe it was. The cold stayed with him, and people complained bitterly of the long Winter they were having.

So he went South and carried on going, until penguins were his only friends and even they gave him an unpleasant lurch, black in the corner of his eyes. He sat on a cold cliff and waited, perhaps for days.

_'Well this is no good,'_ the voice came before anything else, whipping around Jack's ears like he was right up against him. Like Pitch's mouth was right there. _'What happened to the Guardian of Fun? This isn't very funny.'_

"What do you want?" Jack asked dourly. "If I'm not fun any more, it's your fault."

The laugh tickled his ear, ruffled hair, but there was nothing there. Like Jack was only talking to himself.

_'Scared of me, Frost?' _he questioned. _'Good.'_

"I'm not scared," he forced. "I just don't want you using your powers to hurt people. Not with _my _magic."

_'What else am I to do?' _he put to Jack, and it was then Jack noticed his own shadow now held another's shape. _'I haven't the power to reach out on my own. You all saw to that.'_

"So why aren't you bothering everyone else?" he pointed out. "Why only me?"

_'Aren't you flattered?' _Pitch offered in a way that was almost sleazy. He had that air about him. _'I could tell you, Jack, but why should I?'_

"I don't know," Jack huffed, propping his arms on his knees and staring out into the Artic winds. "This is ridiculous!" he burst, feeling the resentment at the isolation Pitch had driven him to. It was because Pitch could appear at any time that he was a danger, a threat to people.

So he stood with his back to the cliff and faced the endless white. There was nowhere for Pitch to hide now, except under Jack's own feet.

"Show yourself! Fight me!" he demanded, and a sluggish black seeped out from underneath him, stretching a few metres away.

_'Glady,' _he answered, rising up as if the flurries of wind had whipped him off the ground. It was Pitch, spoke like him, had the same presence, but it looked far from the eccentric, robed man whom Jack had known. Nothing about him was solid, flickering as if strung through a constant fan. Wisps of black ripped away from him and snagged in the wind like streamers, but for everything that swirled away an eddy was caught and pulled in, feeding his monstrous form.

"What _are _you?" he asked in horror, watching the figure without moving.

_'The only thing I can be now,' _he answered in a voice caught in the wind, close and far at the same time.

"I don't understand," Jack bellowed against the winds as they slowly built, not knowing how much was himself and how much was Pitch. "I want answers!"

_'I thought you wanted a fight?' _asked Pitch, or whatever remained of him, as Jack swung his staff to block an oncoming sweep of the scythe. The two clashed and a jagged, ugly twist of dark and ice fell to the ground.

This time without anything else around, without escape options, the battle raged longer and harder. Jack wore himself out defending blow after blow, attacking and finding that nothing happened. If he trapped Pitch he broke away like oil and water, if he hit him the blows went straight through. He dared not get close for fear of what might happen, but as the hours passed of sudden, sporadic blows he realised that Pitch's shape had been changing. At first he'd been a pillar or rippling, inconsistent black without shape or form, and now he was almost what he'd been before. The tall, human figure with too-wide shoulders and a cruel, neolithic face. His robe still shifted and rippled like it wasn't real; he seemed dimmed like a flicking light bulb, but he was himself again.

"You've changed," Jack murmured wanly, feeling like a tapped barrel.

_'Not in any way that matters, Frost,' _he answered without moving a mouth, just eyes that stared endlessly, not blinking.

"But..." _how _Jack was going to ask, until he gave a shiver. _He _shivered. That was like Sandman shaking the grit out of his shoes. Then it became clear. "It's me, isn't it?!" he shouted violently. "That's why I'm so... and then you get stronger." Pitch was draining him like a battery.

_'I took a pinch of power, no need to fuss about it so much,'_ Pitch answered dryly. _'I'm still no threat to you and your fellow Guardians.' _

"That's not an excuse," Jack burst. "You can't just... just-"

_'What?' _The wind suddenly stopped, like it had been Pitch's doing all along. It became frighteningly quiet, and Pitch stood across from him practically melting into the snow. Something about him was still off, and then Jack noticed how his shadow pulled away from under his feet and fed underneath Pitch. Like a parasite. _'I can do what I want.' _It was as much of a threat as a statement, but he didn't move.

"What is this? Why are you doing it?" Jack demanded, keeping his staff across his body. He didn't trust Pitch to stay docile even now, when it felt like a pin could drop and be heard. They stood amidst a strange graveyard of contorted, blue-black shapes. Ice sculptures depicting violence, aggression and fear.

_'The question is not why or how, but who will stop me,' _Pitch answered serenely. _'Can you, Jack?'_

"I can try," Jack threatened, but he knew it was hopeless. Every time they fought Pitch only came back, drinking in Jack's power and corrupting his magic like an infection. "Why me?" he questioned. "That's the thing I don't get."

_'Maybe you're special,'_ Pitch proposed unpleasantly. He could be ominous without moving an inch. Jack had realised it was when he _didn't_ move that he looked most intimidating. He was more garish and cartoon-like when he slid around his own body like a half-full tank of water.

"Not to you," Jack replied. He knew Pitch had only taken note of him once he threw his lot in with the Guardians. He'd said it himself. The rest was a show.

_'Oh, but you are,'_ Pitch said with lightness that almost disguised a chuckle. _'Very special, Jack.'_

"Why can't you just leave me _alone!_" With a burst of blue magic and frost Jack sent his staff slamming down and tried to cover Pitch over in ice, but it did nothing. Pitch continued to stand as he had been all this time, and the ice split straight around him and formed angry peaks on either side. Like some biblical parting of the seas, Pitch had parted ice and fed them into huge fans spreading out on either side of him. They looked almost like wings. But those wings wouldn't fly. Jack raised up off the ground with the wind, trying to get away, and Pitch remained, watching him.

_'Run, child,' _Pitch told him. _'Fly away on your wind. I won't chase you.'_

A time ago Jack would've laughed if anyone told him he was going to be taking orders from Pitch Black. He would've called them a bull-goose looney and pelted them with snowballs until the sun went down.

Yet when Pitch said run, he flew up on his heels and ran.

"Jack, you have to slow down," Toothiana pleaded. That wasn't a good sign, when the Tooth Fairy couldn't keep up with you.

"But I've worked it out, well, no, I haven't worked all of it out," Jack babbled. "I just realised what some of it _means_, you know? Pitch – it is Pitch, it _is_ – he's taking my power."

"Pitch?" she latched onto the most important word. "Your _power_, Jack? You have to explain."

"Well it started when-"

"_Slowly_," she urged, and Jack took a deep breath and tried to still himself. Toothiana talked a hundred miles a minute but that didn't mean she could hear at twice that.

"Pitch has been... _appearing _to me," he explained. "He shows up out of nowhere, does something to my magic to make it bad, and then he... well... fights me." Most of the time Tooth chatted through anything and everything. Not now. A cluster of baby teeth hovered around her and she ignored them, hung still in the air staring at Jack, only the buzz of her wings making a sound amidst the background chatter of the palace.

"He what?" she asked quietly, and now Jack felt like someone was giving him the right kind of reaction to Pitch's appearance. "You're sure it was him?"

"Positive," Jack answered. "I mean, he talks to me so-"

"_Talks _to you?" she pounced on. "You've spoken with Pitch?"

"Exactly," Jack accoladed. "I told North and Sandy and they didn't-"

"You told North and Sandman that you've been talking to _Pitch Black_ and they didn't think to tell the rest of us?" Tooth shot indignantly, twisting in the air like a preening bird ready for a fight.

"No," Jack rushed. "I mean, I told them well... I said that I'd seen him, I said we'd fought. I didn't mention talking."

"Why not?" she squeaked. "Jack, Pitch has always been _most _dangerous when you listen to him. That's how he's works, planting ideas in your head, convincing you of things that aren't true."

"I can't help that he talks at me," Jack protested. "He's been following me around the _world_, and wherever I start to bring some fun and joy to the people, he ruins it."

"How do you mean?"

"I can't explain it, if I could I'd know what to do," Jack lamented. "I just... it's like he gets into my powers, and then turns them over to _his _side. Like he did with the dreamsand."

"What happens?" she asked tentatively, and Jack noticed all the fairies giving him a wide berth. Now they were scared of him too.

"Well... everything is fine, then something will go wrong," Jack explained. "Like, a car will slip on the road, or a snow falls off a roof on top of someone's head, or-"

"Jack," she interjected calmly. "Don't those sound like the sort of things you usually do?"

"No! I mean, well, sort of," he amended. "Not like that, though. I never... people have been in danger. _Children_ have been in danger."

"Are you sure," Toothiana started gently, "that you haven't let Pitch get into your head? Do you think it's possible, Jack, that Pitch has only made you _think _he's gotten into your magic?"

"No!" he yelled, then remembered who he was talking with. They didn't yell and scream like kids in the Guardians. "I mean, I guess it's _possible_," he reasoned. "But I-"

"It's okay, Jack," she soothed. "You should have said something sooner. If it _is _Pitch-"

"Of course it is!" he snapped. "Don't you believe me?!"

"It's not like that," she replied. "I just... we have to be careful. It took Pitch hundreds of years to rise up before."

"I know, so why should he be doing this to me now?" Jack phrased. "I don't know, and he won't tell me either." Tooth gave him a very stern look; one that might send him running to his room if he had one to go to.

"I don't think you should be looking for any answers from him," she said almost like a reprimand. "Don't listen, Jack."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked helplessly. "I can't stop him, and I can't predict him, and you say I can't talk to him either. Am I just supposed to, supposed to..." He could tell he was getting frantic, but it kept on happening and he still didn't have any answers. Pitch seemed to _know _something, he just wasn't ready to talk.

"I'm not sure what to tell you," Tooth offered. "If you want to summon the Guardians-"

"No," he cut in. What would happen, except a giant repeat of everything that had happened before? "That isn't necessary, really." He gave Tooth a grin, letting her eyes flit to his mouth instead of his eyes, where the lies probably showed. She was still distracted by a flash of the pearly whites now and again. "I'll be fine."

"Really, Jack?" she fretted.

"Sure," he consoled. "I mean, Pitch was defeated, right? He's nothing more than a bug in my ear. I'll just ignore the buzzing."

"If you really think so..." Now she was the one to be worried. It was a law of reverses with Jack and the Guardians these days. They were calm when he panicked, then they panicked when he was calm. He found himself wondering what they really thought of him. If he was really considered equal to the other Guardians, who'd been around so much longer.

That was just Pitch in his head, he told himself, assuring Toothiana that he was making a big deal out of nothing and taking off on an afternoon breeze.

_It'll be fine_ he'd convinced her, telling himself the very same thing. It'll be fine. It _would _be fine.

He just had to get his answers.


	4. Manny

I realised that I named the last chapter the wrong thing (shoulda been Tooth because she's in it but oh well). Hope people are enjoying this little saga.

* * *

Cold and Dark

_Chapter 3_

* * *

Jack was soaring over one of those expanses of tundra that made him forget humans were the dominant force on the planet. Out here where mountains and ice ruled the land it was easy to see the planet as something unique and living of its own. Mother Earth, who shaped and changed regardless of the little creatures that carved out a living on her face.

He could almost forget everything, leave behind the responsibilities and worries that chased him like wolves. Except it was a pure, perfect night and the moon stared down at him like one colossal eye. Watching, always watching.

Jack flew up as high as he could, to the peak of a mountaintop blue in the moonlight, and stared up at the Moon as if he could pull the man out of it by his neck and shake him down for answers. He hung, huge and mute over Jack's head like he might fall down to join the rest of them. A sky coming down. He didn't move.

"Why is this happening?!" he screamed into the waste that swallowed noise. So big and empty it was overwhelming to a speck like him. A tiny force against the world. "Answer me, you hear! I want answers!"

The Moon did nothing but stare down with indifference. Jack felt very alone.

"How do I stop him? How do I fight Pitch when he won't... when I can't... you watch over all of us, don't you?" he asked the deaf audience. "Why won't you tell me what's going on? What I can do to-"

A laugh with the quality of black molasses danced along Jack's shoulderblades, running down his neck. A laugh that was silk over razor blades and chased him no matter where he went. Did Pitch see everything? Was he a spy while Jack talked to the others? Talked about _him_.

"No," Jack said steelily. "Not you."

_'You'll get nothing talking to him, Jack_,_' _Pitch told him. He couldn't be seen, but Jack sensed that he was nearby, hanging under the shadows of the mountain peak. _'Believe me, I know.' _Jack continued to stare up at the overwhelming brightness of the moon, even brighter now, perhaps. A chuckle tugged at his ear. _'Ohh, not talking to me?' _It was an insult. _'I don't see why.'_

"I don't want anything more to do with you," Jack stated coldly.

_'But Jack,' _Pitch entreated, and out of the corner of his eye Jack saw him there. At the edge of his peripheral vision, standing in Jack's shadow. Close enough to stab him in the back, but Jack knew somehow he wouldn't. Not with the Moon staring down at them like that. _'We both have something the other wants. Why shouldn't we get along?'_

"You don't have anything I want." It wasn't hard to shut him out, but it felt slightly off. Like Jack wasn't entirely sure his choice was right. Pitch was the only person who seemed to have an inkling of what was going on, and what did they expect of Jack? To live like this forever? Pitch Black as his shadow?

_'Don't I?' _Pitch chuckled smugly. _'I know what you don't, Frost. And you have something I want.' _

"What?" He knew the answer already, but asking seemed necessary. Like he might say something else.

_'Power,' _was the inevitable answer. _'You have power I can use. I want it.'_

"What makes you think that I'm going to give up power to make you strong again?" Jack challenged. He turned to face Pitch, turned his back to the moon, and took him in like a death sentence. He was looser, more ragged in shape, more skull-like in the face. He looked like the King of the underworld, the Grim Reaper and Angel of Death and Hades all rolled into one. His jaws parted – it wasn't a smile.

"_Because I'm the only one who can tell you why," _he answered, and for the first time the jaw moved, the mouth spoke words. Like bone would clack together and rattle with his speech.

"You'll lie," Jack replied, and kept his staff tight in his hand, but lax at his side. He knew now that fighting Pitch only fed his power, that was what he wanted. To deal with him he couldn't rely on magic.

"_Why would I invent a lie just to deceive you?" _he posed slyly. _"The truth serves me just as well. If you let me have the power I want, I will give you the answers you crave."_

"I don't need your answers," he insisted.

"_Now who's the liar?" _taunted Pitch. _"You're dying like this, Jack. You're afraid I'll never go away." _It was an ugly reminder that Pitch always knew the dark thoughts at the back of his head. _"What would it do to you, forcing exile because you're a danger to the children you love so much? It's almost worth it, just to see you suffer." _Pitch was enjoying this. _"But, there's an alternative."_

"What?" Jack found himself asking.

"_If you let me have the power I need, I'll tell you everything you want to know – about this, about why you're different." _

"Before," Jack heard himself demand. It sounded suspiciously like opening a deal. "If you start talking first... I'll think about it. Maybe."

"_Maybe? That isn't convincing enough for me,' _Pitch baited. _'Don't you want to know, Jack? Why it's you I have to torture?"_

"I..." Yes, he did. He desperately wanted to know.

"_Of course you do, I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it in your fear. You didn't forget that I know your fears." _His tone was light and teasing, like an owner cooing to a pet. As if Pitch was just playing with him. _"You're afraid that I'll never leave, and you won't know why... and that there's nothing you can do against me."_ He couldn't smile, but especially not like this. He tried anyway. _"You might be right. Maybe I'll never leave you alone... unless."_

"What do you want with it?" Jack bit. "Why do you need my power?"

"_Because I have none left," _he answered calmly. _"Don't you remember?"_

"I remember you getting dragged down by night mares," Jack answered.

"_I wasn't believed in any more,_" he answered. _"Without their belief, without fear, I'm nothing."_

"Okay, so then why-"

"_You think you're all grown up, don't you, Jack?" _Pitch taunted, moving his arms from limp by his sides to cross over his chest. They seemed too long to be real, like bones wrapped in thin fabric. Like he'd snap if touched, or crumble to dust. _"A Guardian now, three hundred years old. But you're not, are you?" _Jack didn't like his tone. It was patronising and threatening at the same time.

"Get to the point any time now," he goaded, but Pitch wasn't easily rushed. He liked to squeeze the blood out of things, wring them for every last drop.

"_You weren't grown up when you fell through the ice," _Pitch remarked, awakening a primal sadness in Jack's chest. Retrieving his memories had also given him the ability to regret what had happened to him, to mourn a life he never got to live. _"Oh yes, I know about that," _he tittered. _"Do you think I held onto those memories and didn't take a peek? You and that little girl you died to save." _He gave that grimace again, with too many teeth and no lips for them to hide behind. _"So much fear." _Like a chef tasting a meal.

"I'm warning you, Pitch," Jack growled. Tooth had told him there was no way for anyone to access memories except that child and the fairies who delivered them, but then why would Pitch know? Perhaps he was lying just to provoke Jack. Or maybe he had a way. Pitch wasn't just anyone. He could do things not even the Guardians thought possible. Before he braced himself for a fight Jack reminded himself that was what Pitch wanted – if he couldn't convince him to do something better, that was.

"_I'll get to the point, but only as a personal favour," _he continued. "_You weren't quite grown up when you passed on."_

"I'm over three-"

"_I'm speaking," _Pitch interrupted. _"You were still somewhat a child, and you were frozen like that. For centuries." _He trailed off like the power behind his speech had just run out.

"And?" Jack prompted. "So what?"

"_That's part of the deal,"_ Pitch announced. _"Time to break even. You owe me something." _

"Why do you need my power? What are you planning?" Jack demanded defensively.

"_Do you remember what it felt like when I snapped your staff in two?" _Pitch queried, and on instinct Jack's hands twitched towards his abdomen, where the memory of that pain lingered.

"It was awful. It hurt," he answered. Pitch was watching him unwaveringly, waiting for the connection to be made. "Are you... saying that's what it's like for you?"

"_It is not pleasant,"_ he answered blankly. _"But it is not your concern how your power will serve me. Only that you need give it."_

"Why should I?" Jack challenged. "Maybe this is all a trick."

"_Maybe it is." _He didn't deny it, but gave no indication as to whether he was serious or not. _"You just have to take a chance. Do you want to know the truth, or do you want to cling to your precious stores of magic? There's enough to share." _It was true, Jack had been getting stronger and stronger as his name was passed all over the world and more children believed. He could've put twice of what he was into himself now and still have power left over. _"What's it going to be, Jack?" _Pitch asked climatically, and Jack felt the edge of the cliff behind his heels. Like he could tip over backwards and be away from Pitch and his choices forever.

"I..." he paused, trying to weigh up two impossible choices. He wanted to know, and Pitch promised _an _answer. Perhaps it wasn't right, but what was he getting from anyone else? Pitch seemed to be the only person who had an inkling, but he priced it too high. Jack couldn't risk handing power over to Pitch if he might rise again. He couldn't be responsible for that. But he couldn't carry on like this either. "I... choose..." He shuffled his feet further towards the edge, feeling backed in although he knew Pitch hadn't any mass under that robe. "Neither!" he yelled finally, and leapt backwards off the cliff.

For a few seconds he fell, then the wind raised up to catch him and carried him away.

_'You'll be back, Frost,'_ Pitch spoke into his ear, using the voice that required no speaking to be heard. Was it telepathy? _'And I'll be waiting.'_


	5. Bunnymund

You would not believe the agony I endured trying to section this whole document up into sections. It has been extremely difficult and I excuse the shortness of chapters only because I have the entire thing written and therefore regular updates are guaranteed.

* * *

Cold and Dark

_Chapter 4_

* * *

"You've gotta be kidding," Bunnymund declared. "What is this, early April-fools?"

"I'm serious!" Jack blurted. "I told the others but they didn't take me seriously enough or didn't have any answers or thought I was just going crazy, but I'm _not _crazy, Pitch is really back and he's haunting me."

"You mean, like a ghost?" Bunny suggested wryly, kicking back on a stone and glancing over egg designs as the toddled past him on their undeniably creepy legs.

"No, well... kinda," Jack answered awkwardly. "It's like he's my shadow or something." Bunny stared at him for a long, testing moment. Then he cracked a grin and thumped a long foot on his perch.

"Nice try, mate," he chuckled. "Thought you'd try to get one over on me? Well, no hard feelings but this rabbit won't fall for it."

"I'm not joking!" Jack yelled. "He's trying to take my power and force me away from everyone, someone's has to stop him before-" It was only the frustration and distress that cracked the air of jest. Bunny's face dropped as Jack trailed off, and he sat up on his stone.

"Before what?" he asked solemnly.

"I don't know," he answered ominously.

"He's really back?" Like Jack hadn't already made that clear enough.

"Yes," he insisted, and carried on before Bunny could offer the usual arguments. "I _know _it hasn't been long enough, but he's here, and he's dangerous, and I can't stop him by myself."

"Struth," Bunny sighed. "You sure pick your times." Easter was coming, of course, but Jack had run out of Guardians.

"I need your help," he admitted. "I can't fight him alone."

"Why not?" Now at last Bunnymund was taking him seriously. "You're stronger than you were."

"I've tried to fight him, believe me, but it doesn't work," he explained. "My attacks either go straight through him, or they..." He decided not to get to the part where he explained he'd been feeding Pitch his power. He didn't want it to look like he'd been helping Pitch on his way.

"So, you need some help kicking him back where he belongs?" Bunny put to him simply, and for once Jack was relieved. Bunnymund was the Guardian who wouldn't if and but about things.

"Exactly," Jack gushed. "Here, I'll show you." He started to fly up on the wind, but noticed Bunny wasn't making to pursue him. "We have to go to the surface," he explained. "Pitch won't come out here."

"Won't he? Because he knows he'll be licked, right?" Bunny suggested boldly. "All right, Jack. I'll see you top-side."

The Warren was technically a few miles below central Australia, so when Jack zipped up through the most direct tunnel to the surface the first thing to hit him was a heat wave that made him think he was about to melt. He wouldn't, but he started to sweat buckets all the same.

"Feeling the heat?" Bunny taunted as he bounced out of one of his burrows and stretched up into the sunlight.

"Did it ever occur to you that no one lives here for a _reason_?" Jack pointed out, channelling a vortex of icy air down from the sky to lift his discomfort a little.

"Don't sweat it – if you can," Bunnymund said with a snort of amusement. "If you melt I'll scoop the puddle up and take you south to re-freeze."

"Very funny," Jack retorted, and turned his back to the sun. It was so strong here that his shadow was sharp against the baked reddish earth. "Let's get this over with." He stared at the outline without result. "I'm waiting!" he baited, pulling on that string in his head, the thread of fear.

"You think Pitch will come out just because you say so?" Bunny asked.

"Mostly," Jack answered, and noticed the look of mistrust. As if no one ought to be that familiar with Pitch.

"Just what's been going on?" Bunny questioned, but there were no words for Jack to answer with. None that made sense. He'd give his answer in evidence – it was already starting. He'd put out a call to his unwanted shadow and it had answered. It was like pulling like a bellrope.

_'Are you sure this is what you want?' _Pitch asked, laying underneath Jack's shadow in his own shape. Obvious to anyone who was looking.

"Just get this over with and fight me," Jack demanded, and without hesitation the shadow leapt off the ground and lunged for him. He met it with a parry, skimming backwards and lashing out a thrust of frost. It was harder here, more exhausting to conjure ice and snow where he had to fight the elements. It had been a bad idea to face Pitch on this terrain. But he'd needed Bunnymund's help, that was the reason they were here.

Bunnymund was in his element on the outback, and perhaps he'd be able to take Pitch down a notch rather than raising him up. Yet the Guardian of Hope just stood there, watching Jack like something was very wrong.

Perhaps he hadn't expected to actually see Pitch, or maybe he was as disturbed as Jack had been by his demonic, half-formed representation. As he skirmished with his shadow, Jack noticed that only sunshine filled the spaces below his feet. He _had _no shadow, except the one trying to kill him. Pitch had taken it.

"What are you waiting for?!" Jack yelled as he shot upwards, away from a swipe of a scythe, and rained down hailstones the size of golf balls.

"Jack..." Bunny started sombrely, and no sooner had he spoken than Jack's shadow slipped back under his feet like the most natural thing in the world. The fight ended as suddenly as it'd begun.

"Where'd you go?" Jack called out. "Coward!" Pitch's response was a long, echoing chuckle that went in through one ear and out the other. It wasn't a reaction to insult.

"Who're you talking to, mate?" Bunnymund asked. He still hadn't moved. Jack drifted down to the ground with more than the sinking sensation of gravity.

"You mean, you didn't-" he stammered.

"Jack," Bunnymund began, "I didn't see anything."

"What?! But you had to!" he exploded. "He was here, my shadow changed and then, and I was waiting for you to help but you just..."

"I only saw you, mate," he broke the news as gently as he could, but Jack was quickly losing composure. "You looked like you were fighting with yourself. Y'haven't picked up a touch of heat stroke, have you?"

"No!" Jack protested, and it was more like a cry for help. "No, it can't be, it can't have... _no_," he ranted, and when Bunnymund lifted a paw he backed away. "I'm not crazy!" he yelled, backing off out of some irrational fear he was about to be restrained. "I'm not."

"No one's callin' you crazy, mate," Bunny soothed. "If you say Pitch is here, I believe you." There was a quality to his voice that worried Jack. It was like a parent coaxing a hysterical child out of a tantrum, lies to get them out of the car and into the Dentist's office. "But... maybe he's more in your head than you think." There it was. The Guardians had been here longer than Jack, they knew he was still green, weak to rhetoric and inexperienced. It was natural for them to assume Jack wasn't used to Pitch the way they were, but in fact they were the ones with it wrong.

"You think I'm losing it, don't you?" Jack accused. "That's what you're all thinking, right? But something's going on, I-"

"Hey, why don't we go to the North Pole?" Bunny proposed gingerly. "We'll make an ends of it there."

"No," Jack found himself snapping like he was being taken prisoner. He couldn't tell if it felt like that because of Pitch, or because that _was _what was happening. His perspective was all off, and under this baking sun he felt like he was going to come apart at the seams. "I have to get out of here." He had to think clearly again.

"Jack, wait-" Bunny started, but it was too late. Jack was racing towards the sky on an updraft, ascending like a rocket or a missile. It wasn't far to Antarctica from here. Things would look better from the pole.

"They don't believe me," he murmured to himself. "They don't get it." The Guardians were outsiders on this, trying to make sense of something they saw by only looking at half the picture. Except there was only one other person who had the full story, and he was fault and reason behind it all.

"I don't have a choice," Jack comforted himself as he slipped onto a Southerly breeze and let the wind ice sweat off his skin. "I have to." He couldn't last like this, that much was clear. He'd lived alone for almost three centuries, but he'd at least been able to watch, to participate indirectly in the lives of those he watched. With Pitch at his heels he would be nothing, ostracised and abandoned.

He was ready to make a deal.


	6. Pitch Black

Last chapter hurray!

* * *

Cold and Dark

_Chapter 5_

* * *

"_You know, I thought I'd find you here," _Pitch offered as if it were a greeting, stepping out from behind a brutal carving of ice and darkness that still stood in the middle of nowhere. A fan reaching up ten or more metres, the first of its kind. Where another deal had been made.

"You planned it, didn't you?" Jack accused. "You knew that he wouldn't see you."

"_I don't know anything for certain," _Pitch answered. _"But I did have my suspicions."_

"All right, you win," Jack confessed. "You can have it your way." He hated to see Pitch trying to smile. No wonder children had nightmares. "But I have a condition," he added, and Pitch's grin halted.

"_Speak carefully, Frost," _he warned. _"You're not in the position to bargain."_

"If I give you this... power that you want, you have to leave me alone," he stated. Pitch's laugh wasn't comforting.

"_You flatter yourself, Jack. You think I want to creep around in your shadow like this? If I get what I want, you won't be seeing me again for a long time." _

"Promise," he stated, trying not to make it a question.

"_Promises? From me? You really are more naïve than I thought," _he scorned, and Jack felt his temper tightening like a wound spring.

"Tell me why it has to be me," he demanded. "And why the other Guardians didn't see you."

"_All right," _he acquiesced, and Jack sensed that he had already been broken in. Otherwise Pitch wouldn't be talking. _"I have been removed from this world, almost completely. Not only was belief taken from me, but fear too. They are practically one and the same in my existence. It makes me invisible to all your precious children, and too weak to be seen by the Guardians."_

"What does that mean?" Jack bit. "Too weak to be seen?" If he didn't understand Pitch's explanations the deal would be off. He wouldn't be fed lies and then abandoned like a dupe.

"_It means that the Guardians don't believe in my threat, and by extension, me," _he explained. _"To them I am like a wisp of smoke in the wind. You see me only because I make you see me."_

"How?"

"_Because you're my last believer, Jack," _he said with a tone that was almost loving. Like the way Jack felt about Jamie.

"That... can't be right," he murmured, unsettled by the mere suggestion.

"_You were taken by the ice when you were still a teenager, not quite grown up," _Pitch reminded him. _"The part of you that was still a child was preserved along with your other traits, to become part of who you are. You are a Guardian, but you are in many ways a child, too."_

"And I... believe in you," Jack mumbled fearfully, piecing together what Pitch was telling him. "I'm a child, kinda, and I still believe in the Boogeyman." Pitch gave that grimace-smile again.

"_Exactly, Jack," _he complimented. _"Not so hard after all, is it? You see, I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be more than a string of agony being trampled by night mares for decades to come, but I sensed you, up there, still believing in me. It was something I could use." _

"That's why you-"

"_I found that I could pull myself to you through that fragile connection, and behold, there was fear. You were still afraid of me, deep down."_

"That you were going to come back," he specified. "That you'd come back for..." Jamie and his sister, but he didn't say that. Pitch knew that anyway.

"_I went to you."_

"You attacked me."

"_I was there before that," _Pitch informed him. _"You just didn't notice. Never looking at your feet, not noticing your shadow."_

"The car crash," Jack named. "That was you." He'd known it all along.

"_Of course," _Pitch remarked without guilt. _"Like dreamsand, I found I could tap into your magic. Give it a touch of darkness."_

"People could have been hurt," he bit. "What if I hadn't been able to-"

"_Don't bore me with pathetic sympathies," _Pitch declined. _"I am bored of humans' lives. Like noisy little fireflies."_ Though Jack thought of himself as old with three centuries behind him, but he knew the other Guardians had more than that, and Pitch was something else. He was almost as old as mankind itself. To him their lifespans _would_ seem small. _"I've told you more than enough," _he announced sternly. _"Your part of the bargain is due."_

"Okay," he relented brokenly, knowing he'd committed from the moment he landed there. He knew that had they done this the other way around Pitch would've laughed in his face and left without a word of truth, but just because Pitch was no good didn't mean Jack would sink to his level. "What do I have to do? Fight you?" He could manage that, unloading all his magic on Pitch without caring if he sucked it up like a sponge.

"_There is an easier way." _Pitch strode up to him beneath robes that seemed to crawl rather than walk. Like he had no legs underneath. When he started to raise his hands Jack had a moment of panic, and paced backwards. _"Stay still,_" Pitch ordered, and Jack curled his toes into the snow. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but not high on the list was Pitch reaching out to cup his face in huge, elongated hands.

He held Jack's head like cradling a skull, fingers that reached all the way up from his jaw to his hair, thumbs like stone pressing into his cheeks.

"_Hold,"_ he breathed at Jack, and he was too overwhelmed to do much else. He hung there like Pitch was dangling him by the neck, feeling the strange, strange sensation of something being cold to hisskin. _"Look at me."_ He'd been avoiding it so far, but now there was the order. He moved his gaze up and felt the connection as they aligned pupil to pupil. Then something happened.

It was like drowning all over again, or going over the top of a rollercoaster, or having a bucket of water so hot or cold you couldn't tell which it was poured down his back. A moment or two later he could feel it happening; the magic pouring out of him into Pitch, like water balancing between a full and empty cannister. It wasn't painful, which he was thankful of, but it wasn't pleasant either.

It might have taken a minute or ten, but he knew when Pitch was going to let go before he actually did. As if the water had levelled between them and there was no more he could take except by force. He was a little surprised Pitch didn't try, but perhaps he knew the value of what he'd gotten already.

When his fingers fell from Jack's face and he stepped back, Pitch Black appeared as he had been at the very start, when Jack had first seen him. Composed and humanised, with granite gray skin and a plain black robe. That he looked less intimidating when he was stronger was worrying in its own way. A mastery of misdirection.

"That's better," he announced calmly, speaking normally, as if he were no threat at all. The ethereal tinge to his voice had vanished. "Thank you, Jack. I'll remember this." And then like a house of cards collapsing he was gone, slipping through the ground into nothing as fast as the beat of a moth's wing.

Jack finally breathed out, and then the fatigue hit him like a wave. Half-empty, his legs crumpled underneath him and he pulled in breaths that were too small to fill his chest. Onto his knees, then his hands in the snow, he watched his arms shake, and finally slid forward onto his face and closed his eyes.

It was over.

"Jack? Jack! Jack wake up!" the voice drew him back when he would have slept longer. He was still tired, he needed rest, but her voice drew him out.

"He's waking up." More than one. Could it be that-

"Stand back." Although half-conscious, Jack had it in him to prepare for something violent to happen, and being whipped up onto his feet and shaken up like a snowglobe was about right. He forced his eyes open and blobs of pink, white and red swam into view. "Ahh, you are awake," North declared jovially, and set Jack on his feet only for them to go out from underneath him.

"Jack, what happened, was it Pitch? Are you okay? Jack, _Jack."_ Toothiana was making up for lost time and running quadruple-speed. It was too much for him in this state.

"I'm okay," he groaned, dropping eyelids closed again. "Just let me rest."

"What's happened to you, Jack?" Bunnymund asked. He'd probably raised the call, Jack reasoned sluggishly. After the way he'd left things.

"It's over," he mumbled, and pushed hands away as they tried to grab at him. "He's gone."

"Pitch?" It was Bunnymund's guess.

"You mean, you've fought with him? But what were you doing taking Pitch Black on all by yourself out here?" Toothiana fussed.

"Pitch returning already? It cannot be so," North countered.

"I didn't... it's... complicated," he said with slow, laboured breaths. This was a lot to deal with at once, and all he really wanted to do was lie back in the snow and sleep it off. His magic replenished naturally, so in a day or two he'd be right again.

"Complicated? You better start talking sense, mate," Bunny urged. Jack shook his head slowly, feeling like his brain was sloshing around inside a big empty room.

"Later," he replied. He slipped out of prying hands and tipped back in the snow, thumping out on his back and drawing up a protective blanket. Of course, for him a blanket was a solid sheath of ice, cocooning himself like a caterpillar in inch-thick plating on all sides. He could just make out cries of protest and thumps on the surface, but they were distant enough to let him drift off to sleep again, safe in his shell.

He woke up in the North Pole, having inexplicably been put through a portal while he was out. A luxurious bed swaddled him like a baby, an outrageous patchwork quilt thrown over the top. Why they covered him in blankets when he didn't need warmth wasn't really clear, but perhaps the elves had just wanted to show they cared.

Jack got to his feet and stretched, clicking all over with the satisfaction of a well-earned rest. He could have been out for a day or a week for all he knew, but when he strained an ear he heard recognisable voices not far away. The Guardians hadn't gone back to their respective dens yet, so it couldn't have been too long.

He walked to the window and gazed out across the wilderness. He was going to have to explain, he knew, and he would tell them the truth – they were owed it. Looking down at his feet, Jack watched the dim spot of his shadow underneath him. Plain and ordinary; no longer a threat, if Pitch was to be taken at his word. Of course, that was the last reasonable thing anyone should do, but Jack knew somehow he'd meant it. It _was _over, for now, at least.

He half expected the voice to chime in from somewhere, to mock him for thinking of the ghost he'd tried so hard to get rid of at a time like this, but all was silent. He trailed a fingertip across the window pane and watched the curl of frost after it, powers seeping back out like a refilling spring.

"Til we meet again, Pitch," he spoke against the glass.

There was no answer.

* * *

That's the end, hope you enjoyed reading!


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